


Lost in LAX

by forochel



Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Canon Related, Ensemble Cast, Episode Tag, Fluff, Humor, M/M, POV Multiple, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 16:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20048983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: A take on what might've happened behind the scenes when Jinyoung got left behind in LAX.





	Lost in LAX

**Author's Note:**

> when I first saw about the LAX thing I immediately knew I wanted to write something about it because ha! ripe for comedic exploitation! and restarted working on this after tribadism, saw that today/tomorrow (what are time zones) is the verse-2-versary and absolutely had to finish it. 
> 
> this contains at most 0.5% of the millenial ennui and melancholy of the album, I guarantee it.

  
"Wait a minute." Jaebeom took his earphones off and sat up to crane his neck round to the back of the van. "Where's Jinyoungie?"

***

_Youngjae _

"He was with Yugyeom last I saw him," said Youngjae, heart sinking into the pit of his stomach.

The last time he'd seen Jinyoung-hyung, before the tunnel vision required to get through an airport like LAX had descended, had been right out of the gate. Hyung had been ahead of him then, pulling his mask back up to cover his unshaven jaw. In his worse moments, Youngjae dreamt about their next concept just being everyone going unshaven. If the 2PM hyungs had been the beast idols, maybe GOT7 could be the bearded idols.

Yugyeom gasped. "It wasn't me!"

"No one's accusing you of anything, Gyeom-ah," Jaebeom-hyung sighed. The suppressed panic in his voice was leaking out the sides even as he leant back forward to get a manager's attention.

"Noona!"

Youngjae stopped watching as Jaebeom relayed the situation to the manager in the car with them -- Haeri-noona was one of the improbably polyglottal tour managers who got attached to GOT7 when they went overseas. He turned his attention, trying not to let the anxiety sloshing in his belly along with his heart overwhelm him, and thumbed into KKT.

***

_Bambam_

Bambam would like the record to show that he totally was not the one who lost Jinyoung.

Hyung lost _himself_.

"He said he was going to go get Bambam." Jackson's voice was grainy and tight over the phone. He's in the other van, which Youngjae had called. "That was when we were passing through all the duty-free shops."

Jaebeom-hyung bit off a swear word. Their last hope had been that Jinyoung’d got into the other van, which’d left after theirs. Bambam shrank back reflexively in his seat before forcing himself back into his insouciant sprawl.

"I never saw hyung," he told Jaebeom.

"Were you distracted by the Hermes store?" Jackson asked, voice getting fainter, probably turning away from his phone to say something to Mark in Mandarin.

"This kid, I swear," Jaebeom said. "Jinyoungie is usually better about going off than this."

Mark said something to Jackson, who let out the sort of laugh that knew it was ill-considered half a second after it left the gates.

"Ah, sorry," Jackson said hurriedly into the phone, voice already going sweeter with placation. "Mark just made ... an accurate observation about Jinyoung."

Bambam could kind of guess. Jinyoung had a bad habit of mothering them even though they were all full grown-ass adults.

"We're going to die," Yugyeom said quietly to Bambam, leaning into him while they watched Jaebeom hang up the phone for Youngjae. "Hyungie is going to murder us all in our sleep."

"Which hyung?" Bambam whispered back.

"Both of them." Yugyeom frowned a little. "But maybe only you, for Jaebeom-hyung."

"Oi!" Bambam sat up. "All I did was _go to the washroom_."

***

_Mark_

The thing Mark couldn’t understand was how Jinyoung had managed to slip their managers.

Like, he knew Jinyoung didn’t mean to — he wasn’t the sort to go off the grid like that — but ... how did that even happen? They moved through airports in a phalanx fenced in by managers and security.

Even if Jinyoung had wanted to go get Bambam to hurry up, someone would have followed him. Right?

“Jinyoungie moves like a cat,” Jackson said. “And he doesn’t take up space when he doesn’t mean to.”

“So you’re saying he could be a ninja,” Mark said.

There was nothing for them to do but stew, wait, text and try to call Jinyoung, so Mark was ... going to deal with it by making stupid jokes, apparently.

“I’m saying sometimes I want to put a bell on him,” Jackson sighed, before switching to Mandarin. “Except I think Jaebeom-hyung would find that too exciting. All the time.”

“Oh my god,” said Mark. “Please — that ... I didn’t need that mental image.”

“Do you think...?”

Mark physically reached over to put his hand over Jackson’s mouth. “Stop, please god. Stop. I’m the only one who understands you right now and I don’t like it — _AAAGH_! Jackson!”

Jackson cackled as Mark flinched back, retrieving his now saliva-y hand. “Do you want me to talk about them in Korean, Mar-keu? Really?”

“I don’t want to talk about them, I want to talk about Jinyoungie getting lost in LAX.”

Jackson sobered up a bit. “Jinyoungie is probably freaking out now. But like, in the way where we’re all going to die later because he’s sublimated his panic into vengeance.”

“He won’t kill you, you’re his best friend,” Mark pointed out.

“Let’s just make sure he’s around to kill or not-kill us, shall we?”

They both unlocked their phones to try and get in contact with Jinyoung again.

***

_Yugyeom_

It had already been ten minutes, but Jinyoungie-hyung’s phone was — not in service, apparently.

Yugyeom could _see_ the tension in Jaebeom-hyung’s shoulders, the way he was clenching his jaw.

It wasn’t — he wanted to say it wasn’t that bad, because Hyungie was good at English and had a level head and a credit card, so even if he was lost eventually he’d realise and go to the hotel himself, right?

“Bam,” Yugyeom whispered, “Do you know what hotel we’re staying at?”

Bambam looked up from his phone, looking a little tight around the eyes. “No. Do we ever?”

“Oh,” said Yugyeom. Maybe Hyungie didn’t know where they had to go. “Oh no.”

“Why ‘oh no’?” Youngjae-hyung said, leaning in.

In times like this, Yugyeom really felt like all three of them were really a maknae-line, even though Youngjae-hyung was a year older.

Huddled together in the backseat, watching Jaebeom-hyung coordinate with the managers and worry himself into a neckache with how tense he was getting, he felt like when he was a kid and Euigyeom-hyung and him huddled together waiting for their parents to decide on a punishment.

“I just thought, you know,” Yugyeom whispered, “that Jinyoung hyung could probably find his own way to the hotel. In the worst case.”

Youngjae’s eyes widened, but it was Bambam who exclaimed in a harsh whisper, “That’s not the worst case, bro! The worst case is Jinyoungie-hyung trying to get _to_ the taxi stand and then being abducted by some crazy sasaeng. And then what! Sold into sexual slavery? Murdered for parts?! ”

“Please,” said Jaebeom-hyung loudly. He wasn’t looking at them, but Yugyeom could totally see the pinched look on his face. “Please could you shut up.”

***

_Jackson_

When he’d competed, and now — when he performed — Jackson settled into a kind of headspace that was very hard to describe to others. It was like the world both gained clarity and narrowed at the same time. Like a sniper waiting for their killshot, maybe. Which wasn’t to say he stopped being aware of his surroundings, it was just that ... he seemed to operate on two different levels, like his consciousness split.

Which was happening now: one part of Jackson was very focussed on trying to get into contact with Jinyoungie, taking his turn on the call rotation that Jaebeom-hyung had thrown together and texted to everyone in the official chatroom. Jackson was distantly sure that Jinyoung would be very annoyed by how many unread messages and missed calls were cluttering his phone once he turned it on or got service or whatever; on the other hand, he was also very sure that the attention-starved part of Jinyoung would be pleased by this.

The other part of Jackson was 50% on the verge of panic and 50% pissed off. In the let’s-just-get-through-this, smile-and-wave-and-think-of-England method of getting through and out of airports, it was very easy to lose track of any members not immediately within one’s periphery. That was why they had staff surrounding them.

So, Jackson might be a little pissed off with their staff, but he figured Jaebeom probably had that covered once he stopped having a minor aneurysm about his unplatonic life partner being stranded in a crazy airport.

In the mean time, he was going to continue teasing Mark about their friends’ sex lives — which, like, what did Mark even know? Jackson was the one who had to listen to Jinyoung try to talk around the fact that he wanted to negotiate kink with Jaebeom. Best friend material, right there.

“Oh!” Mark exclaimed right as Jackson was trying to shove that particular conversation and the mental images it conjured back into the box where they belonged. “My messages just went through! Look, they’re sent!”

Jackson sat up straight — their manager in the front seat already had his phone pressed to his ear.

“He’s not picking up?” asked Jackson, though part of him was already expecting —

“No, line’s engaged.”

***

_Jaebeom_

He almost dropped his phone in his haste to pick up the call. “Jinyoungie!”

“_Hyung_,” said Jinyoung, sounding a uniquely Jinyoung blend of bitchy and barely-suppressed panic. “I think I got left behind?”

Jaebeom winced. “Jinyoung-ah, it’s okay, some of the managers are going back to get you now.”

There was a long pause, Jinyoung’s breaths straining to be even. “So you did leave me behind,” he said eventually. At least he sounded less on the verge of a panic attack now.

Oh god, Jaebeom was in such deep shit.

“I — I’m so sorry, Jinyoungie,” Jaebeom closed his eyes and tried to sound as sweetly placating as possible. “I thought you were with Jackson and Mark-hyung in the other van.”

“Hyung is in the _doghouse_,” Bambam said what he probably thought was an undertone to Yugyeom and Youngjae.

“Well,” Jinyoung said, voice edging over into just bitchy now, “clearly I wasn’t.”

“I know, I know,” Jaebeom said, keenly aware of how hard all ears in the car were straining. Especially the maknae’s. “I’m sorry. We’ve been trying to contact you for the last ... the last twenty minutes, Jinyoung-ah.”

Haeri-noona had turned around in her seat and was gesturing at Jaebeom to get to the salient parts of the conversation.

“My phone wasn’t getting signal for some reason,” Jinyoung said, voice sounding tight again. Jaebeom felt a pang — nothing worse than getting stuck alone in an international airport with no way of communicating with the team. “And the wifi was for shit.”

“It’s all right now,” Jaebeom soothed, “okay? The managers will be waiting for you at, um, I’m putting you on speaker — where are you now?”

“Just past the luggage belts. There’re...” Jinyoung hesitated. “There’re still a lot of fans out there.”

“They’ll come and get you,” Haeri-noona interjected. “Wait inside, Jinyoung-ah. It should only be about 15 more minutes, the team is just circling into the pick-up area again. Jaebeom caught your absence early. Thankfully.”

“Okay,” Jinyoung said. “I, um, Jaebeom-hyung?”

Jaebeom took the phone off speaker and pressed it to his ear. “Yeah?”

Sounding reluctant, Jinyoung asked, “Can you ... is it okay if we talk while waiting? I don’t want to get bored.”

Biting down on a smile — Jinyoungie was still so cute — Jaebeom said, “Sure.”

***

_Jinyoung_

It wasn’t like Jinyoung didn’t know he pouted.

Jaebeom had told him enough times that his default expression was a pout and to stop it before Jaebeom ate him alive, which honestly wasn’t as much of a deterrence he seemed to think it was.

So, like most things Jinyoung had found over the years he couldn’t help or change about himself, he leaned into it.

He pouted his way through the crowds of fans still outside LAX, pouted his way into the van, pouted his way out of the van, pouted up the lift and into his hotel room.

Jaebeom was sitting on a bed, looking contrite.

To be honest, Jinyoung wasn’t even angry at him anymore, not when he’d so accurately read Jinyoung’s cues over the phone and stayed on the line with him while Jinyoung propped up the wall next to the exit from the luggage belt area, telling soothingly inane stories about his cats and their shenanigans until the managers had appeared.

“Are we sharing?” Jinyoung asked, putting his bag down and kicking his shoes off. The hotel slippers had already been unwrapped and laid out. Jaebeom was trying so hard; it was adorable.

“If ... you don’t mind,” Jaebeom said, eyes wide and voice hesitantly hopeful. His fingers were curled into the bed runner, wrinkling the smooth satin.

Jinyoung cocked his head, raising his eyebrows. “Where else would you go?”

“Somewhere. Anywhere. Arrangements can be made. I think two of the managers are in a triple —” Jaebeom cut himself off, already patting around on the bed to find his phone.

Abruptly, the adrenaline and determination to Get Through This drained out of Jinyoung in a such a rush he felt it ought to have made a sound. Maybe it was the relief of finally being where he was supposed to be, or some kind of weird drop he was experiencing after taking off the whole pouty performance. Whatever it was, his knees didn’t feel like they could hold him up much longer.

“Hyung,” Jinyoung said, quiet and plaintive. “Don’t.”

It should have been gratifying, the way Jaebeom dropped his phone to look up at him, stricken. Instead Jinyoung just felt small and guilty; he knew he took his teasing too far sometimes, could be a little too convincing. And then when it backfired on him, it really backfired on them both.

“Nyoungie, hey —” Jaebeom was suddenly much closer, pulling Jinyoung into a hug. “It’s okay. You’re here now.”

“It’s so stupid,” Jinyoung confessed into the safely warm space in the crook of Jaebeom’s neck. “I just — felt like something was going to crawl out of my throat the whole time.”

“I’m sorry,” crooned Jaebeom, cradling the nape of Jinyoung's neck and petting his hair, rocking them gently. “It’s okay now, baby, you’re okay now.”

Jinyoung let himself sag into Jaebeom’s arms.

“Oof,” huffed Jaebeom, staggering backwards a little.

Just like that, the lead balloon of anxiety lingering in Jinyoung's belly transmogrified, rose up as a giggle into his throat. Lifting his head, Jinyoung squinted mock-accusingly. “Are you calling me fat?!”

Jaebeom laughed and pat him on the bum.

There was something deeply infectious about Jaebeom smiling, and Jinyoung was too worn out to even try to pretend he wasn’t affected this time.

“I’m filing for a divorce,” he said in a terribly executed deadpan as Jaebeom started shuffling them backwards. “Irreconcilable differences. He called me fat.”

“You’re adorable,” said Jaebeom instead, and kissed him on the temple.

Bearing them down together onto the bed, Jinyoung told him as snottily as he could manage: “You can’t get out of this by sweet-talking me.”

“Oh?” Jaebeom rolled them over, a very different sort of cast to his smile now. “What do you suggest, then?”

Jinyoung thumped him on the chest. “Not sex! We both smell like aeroplane and I’m too — too —”

Jaebeom's eyes softened. Sometimes Jinyoung was struck all over again by how much they'd both grown, and especially by how painfully Jaebeom had tried to remake himself. It always hurt a little, tender and true, somewhere under his breastbone.

"Showers, then," Jaebeom said easily, and clambered off Jinyoung. "Coming? They have one of those fancy waterfall ones."

"What's the point when we have sound check tonight," Jinyoung said, following anyway. He made sure Jaebeom got his own shower and face things out as well; he'd ruin his hair with hotel shampoo otherwise.

"To wash the plane off," Jaebeom replied as they were stripping down. "So we can nap in peace."

"So _you_ can nap in peace, you mean. I might have wanted to go the gym."

Jaebeom gave him a look and shepherded Jinyoung into the shower stall, crowding him along with his ridiculous shoulders. Turning on the faucet, he asked, "Did you?"

“... No.”

It was his habit, yeah, but all of Jinyoung’s focus had been on getting himself _un_-lost, and then on holding himself together until he was somewhere safe to let go.

“And so,” Jaebeom said, and tugged Jinyoung under the spray. “Let me wash your hair for you, Nyoungie.”

“My arms aren’t broken,” Jinyoung said, tilting his head back and closing his eyes anyway. He heard himself let out a little reflexive whimper when Jaebeom got his shampoo-y fingers into his hair, massaging the slightly astringent pine-scented gel into his scalp.

“Mmhmm.” The warm indulgence in Jaebeom’s voice dripped its way down Jinyoung’s spine, so that Jinyoung wished there were a plastic stool he could sit down on. He leaned back into Jaebeom’s front instead, solid and sturdy and reliable, and drifted.

He almost fell asleep on his feet, supported like this in the humid coccoon of the shower: Jaebeom’s hands sliding over his skin, careful and affectionate as Jaebeom manouevred Jinyoung as he pleased like a doll. He certainly felt like one, pliant and pliable in Jaebeom’s arms.

Jaebeom washed his face last, strong-knuckled fingers gentle on his brow, the arch of his nose, the give of his cheeks. He was vaguely aware that beyond the darkness behind his lids, they were facing each other; Jaebeom’s half-hard dick pressing into his thigh told him that if nothing else. There was comfort in that too; that they could stand close like this with no urgency; only comfort and simple, non-sexual intimacy.

“You’re done now,” Jaebeom whispered, thumbs swiping over Jinyoung’s lids one last time before pressing a kiss to each eye. The shower shut off — god, how much water did they just waste? — and Jinyoung was bundled out and a warm towel dropped on top of his head. Jaebeom started rubbing vigorously, and laughed when Jinyoung whined in protest.

“Jaebeom-ah!” Jinyoung opened his eyes, and felt his breath catch in his throat; Jaebeom’s face, creased up with laughter, always managed to strike at his heart. “You were doing so well.”

“Was I?” Jaebeom teased.

But he looked so shyly pleased anyway that Jinyoung gave up on teasing further, smiling at him instead. “Yeah.” And then he nudged into Jaebeom’s hands, still clapped around his head. “Go on.”

So Jaebeom obediently did, a little less vigorously than before, and delivered Jinyoung wrapped up in a bathrobe to bed before going back to his own shower.

“Come back quick,” Jinyoung commanded sleepily, snuggling deeper down under the covers. It’d got a little cold in the room. “Before I fall asleep.”

He got another kiss, this time glancing off his nose, and a murmured, “Yes, baby,” before Jaebeom’s steps were hurrying off to the shower.

The shower turned back on, now with more splashing sounds and — Jinyoung snickered to himself — one loud bang as Jaebeom knocked into the glass wall. It woke him up a little more, at least, so he reached over and got the book that Jaebeom had left on the nightstand in between the double beds.

He was just finishing the prologue when the bathroom door opened and the combined smells of their various washes billowed out together with a very naked Jaebeom, clad only in a towel.

“I thought we were just napping?” Jinyoung asked teasingly, turning a page and looking at Jaebeom through his lashes.

“Wha —” Jaebeom jumped and almost tumbled his unzipped suitcase. “Oh, Jinyoungie, you scared me.”

“...were you expecting someone else?”

“No, I thought maybe you’d have fallen asleep.”

“I was waiting,” Jinyoung said, and shifted pointedly, pushing the duvet down a little, “for you.”

Jaebeom pulled on sweatpants and discarded the towel over the back of a chair. His hair was still a little damp and all mussed up, and there were still droplets of water clinging to the fine hairs on his chest. Jinyoung was reconsidering the no sex rule he’d imposed for nap time.

But then Jaebeom climbed into bed with him and dimmed the lights, rearranging them so that their legs were slotted together and he was curled into and half on top of Jinyoung, nose squished into his sternum, arms heavy around his waist. The gingery smell of Jaebeom’s shampoo tickled at Jinyoung’s nose, and he put his face into his hair, breathing in deep.

Like this, with Jaebeom warm and heavy all around him, the exhaustion that sank in and made its home in the bones during tours crept up again.

“Nap time,” Jaebeom murmured, voice slurred with satisfaction. “‘M glad we found you, Jinyoungie.”

“A-aah,” Jinyoung yawned, and held on tight.

***********

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! 
> 
> if you liked this hit the kudos button, give it [an RT](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1156404917000646657), and let me know how you felt in the comments if you'd like!


End file.
